3pSP2. Echo components for aspect-independent classification.

Session: Wednesday Afternoon, June 18

Time: 1:45

Monostatic, backscattered data from a finite, ribbed cylinder are shown.
These data from a nonspherical scatterer exhibit a great deal of angular
dependence. This angular dependence complicates the design of a classifier which
uses templates to test the similarity of a test signal with the known scatterer.
The scattering data have previously been shown to primarily consist of
components generated by specular reflection, elastic waves, and Bloch waves. The
angular dependence of this data set is shown to be due to fading of each
component from a physical mechanism, as well as the changing interference of the
various components as their relative timing changes. The separation of the
echoes into components is shown to decrease the angular dependence. Finally, it
is shown that a modest number of templates can be derived from the
angular-dependent components through the use of the Karhunen--Loeve
transformation and the assumption of equal statistical weighting of each aspect
angle. The ka range considered extends from approximately 3 to 10. [Work
supported by ONR.]